Author
Topic: Firmament Moves (Read 10555 times)

Did some thinking and drafting moves last night, and this is what I came up with. Not quite right yet, but some good ideas and getting closer.

Basic Travel Move Attempt #1When you set a course between the stars, answer the following questions and take +1 on the subsequent roll for each you can confirm:

Is the path well known?

Is the path well traveled?

Is the path well lit?

On a 10+, etc.

Basic Travel Move Attempt #2

When traveling a well-marked path, roll to reach your destination. On a 10+, you make it; on a 7-9, you’re not quite there yet but take +1 forward; on a failure, you’ve strayed off the path and into the unknown.

When traveling the unknown, roll to find the path. On a 10+, you’ve found a well-marked path; on a 7-9, you’re still in the unknown but take +1 forward; on a failure, you’ve lost your bearings and become completely disoriented.

When you are lost, roll to recover your bearings. On a 10+, you recover them but must now make your way through unknown stars; on a 7-9, you’re still lost but take +1 forward; on a failure, set this character aside until they are recovered by the other characters.

Basic Travel Move Attempt #3When you reach out for the stars…… if you are disoriented or in someplace unknown, roll-1;… if you are in a known location but are taking a shot in the dark, roll+0;… if you have good information about where you are going, roll+1;… if you have previously traveled to where you are going, roll+2;… if the path is well-lit and well-marked by beacons, roll+3.On a 10+, you arrive with no problem; on a 7-9, you can go there or circle back around to where you started, but if you go, choose one of the following; on a failure, you don’t arrive, choose one of the following, and start a countdown clock for being lost.

Dancer in the DarkWhen making travel moves, treat them as one level easier.

PilotingWhen you join hands with others to pilot them through the void, change certain things about the basic travel moves.

Body MemoryIf you roll a 12+ on a travel move, you can solo travel the exact same route in the future without having to roll. If you are piloting for others, roll at +2, but you cannot choose to lose yourself to ensure the group reaches its destination.

StarburstWhen you have time and intimacy with a star, roll+whatever: On a 10+, you attract the attention of those you have in mind. On a 7-9, they are notified, but you also attract the attention of other things or people moving in the infinite dark. On a failure, your comrades have no clue and you attract undesired attention.

When you gaze into the heart of a star, ask it a few questions and roll+whatever. On a hit, it gives you an impressionistic vision in response. On a 10+, it relates to the question you asked; on a 7-9, it's about something else. Taking to starts is like talking to whales, sometimes we think we can kinda understand each other, but not really.

When you gaze into a person's heart, blah blah, basically a variation on Read A Person.

Also, I think navigation and travel replaces violence as the anxiety-invoking and narratively and mechanically complex core of the game. So the optional battle moves are probably going to be hacked to become the exploration / recovery moves for going to new places or finding those that have been lost. The countdown clock for recovery limits how long somebody can be lost before they are not recoverable. For exploration, it probably represents how disoriented you can be before the journey has become impossible and you're now lost (and start a recovery clock for yourselves). Some of the battle moves are pretty much directly applicable, like Stay The Fuck Down becoming Pick a Spot and Stay There, improving your chances of recovery but not really actively working to be found.

The hard part, and something I'm still thinking about, is how difficult it may be for players to describe interesting things happening during travel, in the way that folks can easily describe exciting violence because we see it in our media and it's easy for us to imagine. So I think the travel / recovery / explanation moves need to have lists of prompts or other ways to help people describe what they are doing.

Plot a CourseWorks like Read A Sitch, but instead of asking the GM questions, you pull out the stellar map and actually figure out what's the shortest route, what's the smartest route, what's the easiest route, things like that. And then you get +1 to later travel moves each time you act on what you discovered from plotting your course on the map.

Also, I've been noticing that a lot of my core moves don't seem to draw on stats, so maybe their either aren't any core stats (just relative ones like Hx and barter) or there are only 1 or 2.

Two stats called Inside and Outside. (of course, they're stolen from Ice and Light in Polaris)Use Inside when you:- engage in relations, overcome your weakness, ask questionsUse Outside when you:- go into danger, reach through the stars, explore remnants of the human civilizations

Basic Travel Move Attempt 3 is good. I'd add two details:the roll clause: when you are traumatized, roll -2the 7-9 clause: you arrive to late

Getting there too late is pretty awesome, actually. Maybe there's another one where you have to take a detour or recover yourself after a missed star. It could be more like Act Under Fire / Eye on the Door too where the GM tells you the stakes and then you decide whether to accept them.

The two stats is an interesting idea, but I'm not 100% sure. Seems like Inside could be replaced with a Hx-like stat and maybe Outside as well, based on your familiarity with different routes and places. Hmm...